Professor Laura Seay, who’s helped organize the effort, reported some excellent news today. Orange Côte d’Ivoire announced that they’d be giving credit of 2000 CFA (a little under $5) to all customers, a week of free calls to a landline number of their choice or an Orange number and a week of free Internet access. Most touchingly, they closed their announcement (posted to their Facebook wall) with this statement:

(Rough translation: With these acts of solidarity, Orange Côte d’Ivoire is providing support to all their customers to help them stay connected with loved ones during this difficult time.)

Big, big props to Orange for doing the right thing. If you’d like to send them a thank-you note, please do so here.

Orange’s actions are a great example of what responsible companies can do in moments of crisis. Here’s hoping that other operators in the Ivory Coast will follow their lead, and that when crises emerge in other countries, companies will look to the excellent example Orange has set.

Update – MTN Cote d’Ivoire has joined in as well and is offering free internet access and top up to customers. Great to see two of the three operators in the country taking steps to help their customers get through this difficult time.

5 Responses to Orange Côte d’Ivoire sets a great example

Read about your giving your customers free air time during a civil war. I’m considering how this affects war conditions, i.e., the real time streaming updates that can be annotated on digital maps and the full disclosure of any war attrocites that may occur, hence we are moving into a time when : yes you still can hack the arms off if you like – thou rest assured, its likely that this will made its way onto youtube eventually and their are world courts and oversight bodies…